Former Turkish president poisoned, report says
2 November 2012 / TODAYSZAMAN.COM, İSTANBUL
A Turkish daily claimed on Wednesday that former Turkish president had been killed by a very venomous poison.
Citing an unpublished autopsy report prepared by the Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK), Bugün daily said in its report that Turgut Özal, Turkey’s revolutionary president, was poisoned by “strychnine creatine,” a powerful deadly poison.
An investigation into the suspicious death of the former president began earlier this year after a number of witnesses spoke of unusual circumstances on the day of the death of the then-president, who was reported to have suffered a heart attack. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office recently issued a warrant to exhume the remains of the president for toxicology testing.
Özal, the eighth president of the Turkish Republic, died of heart failure in April of 1993 at an Ankara hospital at the age of 65 while serving in office.
Prosecutors decided in September that Özal's remains should be exhumed and an autopsy performed after a state supervisory board, acting on the order of President Abdullah Gül, produced a report in June that voiced suspicions about the death.
The report was ordered in response to the suspicions of Özal's family and friends about his death and the subsequent investigation.
After the reburial of Özal, the ATK said it will release its report in two months.
In the leaked autopsy report, Bugün claims that the autopsy doctors investigated Özal’s bone marrows, parts of his internal organs and examples of other parts of his body. It added that the examination revealed high-level of strychnine creatine in his body.
The report said this chemical substance was not used in embalming the body of Özal. It noted that the poison was widely used against rats and it is currently banned in Turkey. It is speculated that the poison could be mixed up with Özal’s food or drinks.
The chemical substance is a powerful poison that leads to respiratory failure in 15-20 minutes and could also cause a heart attack.
The prosecutor's office is also investigating a number of unusual circumstances that came to light following Özal's alleged heart attack. Certain facts – including the facts that on the day of his death his in-house doctor and nurse were both out, the staff were not able to start the ambulance due to a mechanical problem, there was a lack of first aid equipment at the presidential residence and there were other similar issues -- have led to suspicions surrounding the death of the former president.
Additionally, the office has focused on inconsistencies between the statements of Özal's doctor and his family members regarding failure to perform an autopsy. Özal's doctor, Cengiz Aslan, claimed that the family of the former president did not request an autopsy, but the Özal family denies this claim.
After a period of military rule following the country's 1980 coup, Özal dominated Turkish politics as prime minister from 1983-89, after which Parliament elected him president.
While prime minister, Özal survived an assassination attempt by a right-wing gunman in 1988, when he was shot at a party congress, suffering only a wound to his finger.
Seen as a visionary who helped shape modern Turkey with free market economic policies, Özal also lent firm support to the West, backing the US-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
Özal led Turkey out of military rule in the 1980s and drove far-reaching economic reform.
Head of forensics denies reports of poison in former president's body
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/he...body-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=33793&NewsCatID=338
An autopsy report on late President Turgut Özal has yet to be finished, the head of the Forensic Medicine Institute said today, dismissing claims that evidence had been found indicating that the ex-head of state had been poisoned.
The statement followed earlier reports by daily Bugün that claimed a poisonous substance had been found in samples taken from the body, leading to suspicions the leader may have been poisoned. The claim was reportedly based on an autopsy report conducted on Özal's body.
But Forensic Medicine Institute head Haluk İnce said the institute had yet to finalize the report.
"The report is not even finished yet. Our work continues. We have several results that are out, but we are in the process of confirming thousands of results through repeated procedures. We haven't sent anyone any reports yet," İnce said.
"We do not know how that story was formed," İnce said. "We did not find the substance claimed to have been found. We are not the source of the story."
Earlier reports by Bugün claimed to have obtained an autopsy report conducted on Özal that confirmed the presence of the poisonous chemical strychnine keratin in his body.
As part of the Ankara Prosecution office's investigation, Özal’s body was exhumed from his grave earlier this year in order for samples to be collected for the investigation.
Özal, Turkey's eighth president, died on April 17, 1993.
"The public should not pay attention to such stories," İnce said.